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“FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the Senate section on pages S182-S183 on Jan. 28, 1998.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, 1998 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. On January 28, 1948, the Senate adopted a resolution converting the Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program (better known as the ``Truman Committee'' for its first chairman, Missouri Senator Harry Truman) into a permanent subcommittee. The special committee looked into charges of waste and abuse in defense contracting during the Second World War. After its first chairman resigned to become Vice President and then President of the United States, the Committee continued to investigate fraud and corruption in the postwar years. Its many successes convinced the Senate of the need to retain an ongoing mechanism to combat wrongdoing and to keep government honest. Today, we celebrate a half century of these endeavors.
As Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, I wish to pay tribute to all of the Senators who have served on the Subcommittee, and to offer a brief survey of the highlights of the Subcommittee's activities over the years.
Senator Ralph Owen Brewster of Maine chaired the ``Truman Committee'' during the Republican Eightieth Congress, but when the Senate transferred the functions of the special committee to the Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments--a precursor of Governmental Affairs Committee--Senator Brewster was not a member of that committee and could not chair the new subcommittee.
The Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Branch already had a subcommittee to Investigate Surplus Property Disposal, chaired by Michigan Senator Homer Ferguson. Senator Ferguson, a former judge, had also been a member of the Truman Committee, and had occasionally served as its acting chairman. Assuming the leadership of the new subcommittee, which was to be called the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Ferguson inherited the special committee's authority, functions, and powers. He merged its staff members with those from his subcommittee to Investigate Surplus Property Disposal. Notably, he retained the Truman Committee's chief counsel William Rogers (who later served as Secretary of State) and its chief clerk, Ruth Young Watt (a Maine native who served as chief clerk from the Subcommittee's beginning until her retirement in 1979). While technically reduced to a Subcommittee of a standing committee, the Permanent Subcommittee exercised authority almost as a separate entity, selecting its own staff and determining its own investigatory agenda.
Senator Homer Ferguson's Chairmanship ended with the election of 1948, which changed the Senate's majority and made Senator Clyde Hoey, a North Carolina Democrat, Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The last U.S. Senator to wear a long frock coat and wing-tipped collar, Mr. Hoey was a distinguished southern gentleman of the old school. During his leadership, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations won national attention for its investigation of the
``five percenters,'' Washington lobbyists who charged their clients five percent of the profits from any federal contracts they obtained for them. The ``five percenters'' investigation raised allegations of bribery and influence-peddling that reached right into the White House and implicated some members of President Truman's staff.
When Republicans regained the Senate's majority in 1953, at the beginning of the Eisenhower administration, Wisconsin's junior Senator, Joseph R. McCarthy, took over as Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee. Two years earlier, as Ranking Minority Member, Senator McCarthy had removed from the Committee another Republican Senator, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine. Senator Smith had issued a ``Declaration of Conscience'' against those who made unfounded charges and used character assassination against their political opponents. Although Senator Smith had not named a specific offender, her remarks were universally recognized as criticism of Senator McCarthy's accusations that Communists had infiltrated the State Department and other government agencies. Senator McCarthy retaliated by eliminating Senator Smith from his Subcommittee and replacing her with the newly elected senator from California, Richard M. Nixon.
When Senator McCarthy became Subcommittee Chairman, he staged a series of highly publicized anti-communist investigations, culminating in an inquiry into communism in the U.S. Army, which became known as the Army-McCarthy hearings. During the latter portion of these hearings, in which the Committee examined the Wisconsin Senator's attacks on the army, Senator McCarthy recused himself, and South Dakota Senator Karl Mundt served as Acting Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Gavel-to-gavel television coverage of the hearings raised public concern about Senator McCarthy's treatment of witnesses and his irresponsible use of evidence. In December of 1954, the Senate censured Senator McCarthy for unbecoming conduct, and the following year the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations adopted new rules of procedure that better protected the rights of witnesses. These actions vindicated the courageous stand of Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith.
In 1955, Senator John McClellan of Arkansas began eighteen years of service as Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Senator McClellan appointed the young Robert F. Kennedy as the Subcommittee's Chief Counsel. That same year, Members of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations were joined by Members of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee on a special committee to investigate labor racketeering. Chaired by Senator McClellan and staffed by Robert Kennedy and other staff members of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the special committee directed much of its attention to criminal influence over the Teamsters Union, calling Teamsters' leaders Dave Beck and Jimmy Hoffa to testify. The televised hearings of the special committee introduced Senators Barry Goldwater and John F. Kennedy to the nation, and led to passage of the Landrum-
Griffin Labor Act.
After the special committee completed its work, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations continued to investigate organized crime. In 1962, the Subcommittee held hearings in which Joseph Valachi outlined the activities of La Cosa Nostra, or the Mafia. Robert Kennedy, by then Attorney General, used this information to prosecute prominent mob leaders and their accomplices. The investigations also led to passage of major legislation against organized crime, most notably the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) provision of the Crime Control Act of 1970. Under Chairman McClellan, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations also investigated fraud in the purchase of military uniforms, corruption in the Department of Agriculture's grain storage program, securities frauds, and civil disorders and acts of terrorism. From 1962 to 1970, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations conducted an extensive probe of political interference in the awarding of government contracts for the TFX (``tactical fighter, experimental''). In 1968, the Subcommittee also looked into charges of corruption in U.S. servicemen's clubs in Vietnam and elsewhere around the world.
Senator Henry ``Scoop'' Jackson, a Democrat from Washington, replaced Senator McClellan as Chair of the Permanent Subcommittee in 1973. Senator Jackson continued most of the Subcommittee staff but added Howard Feldman as Chief Counsel. During these years, Chief Clerk Ruth Young Watt noted that the Subcommittee's Ranking Minority Member, Senator Charles Percy, an Illinois Republican, was even more active on the Committee than was the Chairman, who was balancing his Chairmanship of the Interior Committee and his active role on the Armed Services Committee.
It had not been uncommon in the Subcommittee's history for the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member to work together closely despite their partisan differences, but Senator Percy was unusually active in the minority--even chairing one investigation of the hearing aid industry. Senator Percy continued to work in tandem with Senator Sam Nunn, who succeeded Senator Jackson as Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1979. As Chairman, Senator Nunn continued the Subcommittee's investigations into the role of organized crime in labor-management relations and also investigated pension frauds.
The regular reversals of political fortunes in the 1980s and 1990s saw Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn alternate the Chairmanship with Delaware Republican William Roth. Senator Nunn Chaired the Subcommittee from 1979 to 1980 and again from 1987 to 1995. Senator Roth served as Chair from 1981 to 1986, and again from 1995 to 1996. Senator Roth led a wide range of investigations into commodity investment fraud, offshore banking schemes, money laundering, airline safety, child pornography, and computer security. Senator Nunn pursued federal drug policy, the global spread of chemical and biological weapons, abuses in the federal student aid programs, and health care fraud. Senator Nunn also appointed the first woman counsel, Eleanore Hill, who served as Chief Counsel to the Minority from 1982 to 1986 and then as Chief Counsel from 1987 to 1995. Ms. Hill is now the Inspector General at the Department of Defense.
In January 1997, I became the first freshman and woman to Chair the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and I appointed Timothy Shea as Chief Counsel. During the first session of the 105th Congress, the Subcommittee held hearings into Medicare fraud and penny stock fraud, as well as an oversight review of the Office of the Inspector General at the Treasury Department that led to the resignation of the Inspector General.
Now we have reached the Subcommittee's fiftieth anniversary, which marks another significant milestone. Unlike most standing committees of the Senate, whose previously unpublished records open for scholarly research after a period of twenty years has elapsed, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, as an investigatory body, may close its records for fifty years to protect personal privacy and the investigatory process. Over the past half century, scholars have studied and written about many of the Subcommittee's investigations by using its voluminous public hearings, newspaper accounts, oral histories, and the personal papers of the Senators who served on the Subcommittee, but they have also expressed keen interest in examining the Subcommittee's own historical records. With this fiftieth anniversary, the Subcommittee's earliest records, housed in the Center for Legislative Archives at the National Archives and Records Administration, will begin to open seriatim. The records of our predecessor committee--the Truman Committee--were opened by Senator Nunn in 1980. I trust that the new scholarship that emerges from these records will further national awareness of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations' role and its numerous accomplishments.
The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations does not intend to rest on its historical laurels. As Chair, I pledge a continuation of the Subcommittee's mission of vigilant exposure of government malfeasance, social and economic wrongdoing, and serious violations of the public trust. We will focus on problems that affect the American people in their daily lives so that our work will help and protect the people of Maine and Americans across the nation.
Mr. President, I ask to have printed in the Record a list of all the Chairmen, Ranking Minority Members, and Chief Counsels of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations over the past fifty years.
The list follows:
Chairs of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Homer Ferguson (R--Michigan), 1948-1949Clyde R. Hoey (D--North Carolina), 1949-1952Joseph R. McCarthy (R--Wisconsin), 1953-1954John L. McClellan (D--Arkansas), 1955-1972Henry M. Jackson (D--Washington), 1973-1978Sam Nunn (D--Georgia), 1979-1980, 1987-1994William V. Roth, Jr. (R--Delaware), 1981-1986, 1995-1996Susan M. Collins (R--Maine), 1997-present
Ranking Minority Members
John L. McClellan (D--Arkansas), 1948-1950, 1953-1955Joseph R. McCarthy (R--Wisconsin), 1950-1952, 1955-1957Karl E. Mundt (R--South Dakota), 1958-1971Charles H. Percy (R--Illinois), 1972-1980Sam Nunn (D--Georgia), 1981-1986, 1995-1996William V. Roth, Jr. (R--Delaware), 1987-1994John Glenn (D--Ohio), 1997-present
Chief Counsels
William P. Rogers, 1948-1950Francis D. Flanagan, 1950-1953Roy M. Cohn, 1953-1954Robert F. Kennedy, 1955-1957Donald F. O'Donnell, 1957-1970Jerome S. Adelman, 1970-1971John P. Constandy, 1971-1973Howard J. Feldman, 1973-1976Owen J. Malone, 1977-1979Lavern Duffy, 1979Marty Steinberg, 1979-1981S. Cass Weiland, 1981-1984Daniel F. Rinzel, 1984-1987Eleanore J. Hill, 1987-1995Harold Damelin, 1995-1996Timothy J. Shea, 1997-present
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